


of anger, control, and pleasantry

by tangentiallly



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22585066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentiallly/pseuds/tangentiallly
Summary: An incident on the submarine led to Kit's anger, and the subsequent dinner with Beatrice led to a new plan.
Relationships: Kit Snicket & Beatrice Baudelaire
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	of anger, control, and pleasantry

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I don't own ASOUE

Kit was slowing curling her fingers inwards but not quite actually into a fist yet, stopping and unfurling the fingers again as if she was squeezing an invisible ball in her hand instead. There was some kind of anger bubbling inside of her - not particularly _at_ Widdershins, more like in general at too many things at once - but perhaps also a part of her was specifically angry at him as well. And maybe anger wasn’t quite the right word, just a frustration that’s rising higher and higher inside her by the minute and she thought she might burst.

She didn’t. 

She didn’t burst that easily. She pursed her lips in displeasure - which probably just looked like a thoughtful frown to him, and tried to pace her breathing. Slow exhale. “I need to actually take a look at the engines to determine the specifics of what’s wrong.” She said, maybe the 13th time but somehow felt like the 1300th.

Widdershins continued to go on about what he thought the problem with the engine was by some clues he saw, and now he was elaborately explaining his analysis and logic and line of thought of his problem determination process and how he was at least 70% certain it was right, and how 70% certainty was definitely something that could move forwards without much second thoughts in his book, and he was asking if that made sense to her or if he needed to go into the details of his thought process again for her to understand. Kit felt like she was going mad, especially considering Widdershins was the type of person to mistake 45% certainty for 70%.

Kit exhaled slowly. “I need to take a look at the engines myself to be able to say if this solution is going to work - I get the overall of what you’re saying but something isn’t quite clicking to me and it would be much clearer if I _actually_ get to examine - ”

“Well, I saw this part …” Widdershins began again, repeating what he first saw was out of place for what felt like the 1300th time, and Kit felt like she was getting a headache. She knew about all those already and she’d seen the pictures and she was not questioning that part, but rather what could be causing it and what other malfunctions might’ve led to the most visible error. She was trying to list the different scenarios in her head, but something’s not adding up and she could not quite place her finger on it. 

She wished she could actually get to take a look and take things apart and then it would be much clearer in her head and she was confident she could be certain what was the root cause of all this (and how to fix that) if he could just give her a chance to do the examination work herself, instead of repeating his thoughts again and again. She was good with working with all the mechanical details hands-on, she knew that, and she could trace the problem back to what’s causing it, but his explanation, as lengthy as it was, was not giving her the details she needed.

Kit thought she might lose it. “Just let me take a look,” Kit said, almost exasperatedly.

“Anyway, I’m certain my solution would work,” Widdershins said, and Kit was sure he heard her, but she also was sure he didn’t really process what her words mean. “I’m going to have Gregor also take a look to see what he thinks. Perhaps you can help with our work later.”

So he was just _informing_ her. Kit thought. _Splendid_. Help with them, after they’d come up with a plan and she could just run around fetching them tools? Was that what he meant?

Kit wished she knew enough about the engines that just by what he was describing she could analyze what’s going wrong and give him something specific instead of asking him to let her take a look. This way he would have to hear her thoughts on it. But instead she had nothing concrete at the moment just by the vague information he spoke about, and trying to get a male volunteer a couple years older than her to answer a question about something detailed was proving to be harder than ever. (Not she was asking any question too specific, since she hadn’t gotten the chance to actually examine the engines.) But he just wanted to tell her and explain how he determined the problem and how he was going to solve it with 70% confidence which was apparently good enough for him without getting her input first. But he was going to ask Gregor. Charming. Excellent. Of course he was, they were the same age and they were both men.

Kit could feel her anger rising and she wanted to stand up and pace around to shake her anger away, but she also felt it was quite an achievement of her own to control the anger and still speak rationally instead of shouting, which he was prone to doing. Which he would definitely be doing if it was him who was as angry as her today. Not even as angry, he could be shouting with just a quarter of how angry she was right now. He had such tendencies. She had self control, perhaps not as much as some of her friends but also she knew it was more than him.

She was pretty proud of herself for still maintaining her cool despite her rising frustration, and she also felt she had every right to be angry, all things considered.

She wasn’t exactly sure how she managed to bid him goodbye and say the words “keep me updated on you and Gregor’s process” and simply leave without even getting near the engines, but she did. She climbed back onto her taxi by the dock, and stepped on the accelerator hard.

The taxi sped forwards in a way that would make her brother wince.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, she was back at the organization headquarters and she started working on answering some questions Charles sent her regarding the blueprints that he wanted her advice on. While she did love working on blueprints with Charles, some days it was easy to get distracted while some days she could be more focused. Today, though, she was channeling all her frustration and anger into a sharp, almost intense focus, and she furiously studied and drew on the blueprints for hours before taking a break and suddenly all the exhaustion and hunger were kicking in and she remembered she forgot to eat lunch.

She sighed, and wandered to the kitchen at headquarters and opened the fridge to an extremely disappointing sight. She scowled, and finally decided she would have a piece of toast with jam first and maybe she would get a fancy dinner later.

She dialed Beatrice’s number. “Do you want to get a fancy dinner later and complain about men?”

“Yes! Anytime. I _love_ a fancy dinner and also complaining about men.”

Excellent.

* * *

“He’s an idiot if he doesn’t want your advice,” Beatrice said after Kit told her what happened earlier. “You’re the best mechanic I know. I hope his solution turns out horribly and perhaps then those men can come ask for your help, and you can reject them and say ‘too late for that, boys’. That’d be epic.”

It _would_ give her satisfaction and vindication, she thought. “Except I might still want to take a look because I am curious about this problem and what could lead to it, it’s a very fascinating malfunction I want to explore.”

Beatrice smiled at her, a certain fondness of admiration on her face that would normally make Kit’s heart skip a beat, but today she was in a too tense and furious and channeling-anger-into-focusing-on-work mode to get back into her usual self, so she mostly just felt good in finding solidarity with Beatrice and how she seemed to completely understand her feelings. Kit didn’t know much about the movies industry, but she wouldn’t be surprised if her little brother or Gustav ever tried to explain their thoughts in unnecessary lengthy details to Beatrice. She loved her brother and she knew Gustav’s a pretty decent guy, but she could totally see either of them doing that. 

“That’s the Kit Snicket I know,” Beatrice saluted her with a raise of her wine glass. “Always have to solve an interesting mechanical problem. Always capable, too.”

It was truly nice to be appreciated, especially after what happened earlier today.

“Thanks,” she smiled back, raising her glass too.

They clinked their glasses together.

Kit sighed. “I was just - so angry, you know, although I kept it quite controlled.”

“Self control. It’s an art men like Widdershins wouldn’t understand,” Beatrice said.

“I think my anger are quite justified and I’m _definitely_ entitled to it -”

“Oh for sure,” Beatrice agreed. “Absolutely.”

“But sometimes I do wonder - if I should be more like Bertrand, he’s so - _good_ at not getting angry about things.”

Beatrice took a sip of her wine. “Listen, you know I adore Bertrand, and I definitely think he’s one of the men who, unlike Widdershins, is far more willing to listen to others’ opinion and he definitely doesn’t talk over people and he won’t ignore your request like that, but - just because he doesn’t act like them that doesn’t mean he _doesn’t_ have any inherent advantage over you when dealing with men who do talk over you and ignore what you’re saying. Like, that’s two separate things. It’s easier for him to remain pleasant.”

Kit sighed. “I … yeah, that’s true too. If he asked, Widdershins would probably let him take a look.”

“Bertrand’s this guy who’s always been a star student in teachers and older volunteers’ eyes,” Beatrice shrugged. “While he doesn’t get this kind of anger often, people _also_ usually don’t give him a reason to be this angry either, because who he is. Anyway, I suspect Widdershins would probably also feel less threatened if another man manages to fix this engine problem, as compared to you fixing it.”

Beatrice always had a way of putting things in perspective, Kit thought. “Probably,” she agreed. “I really should find some time to build something of my own and see how he reacts.”

Beatrice’s eyes sparkled enthusiastically. “You should!” She put down her dessert spoon which was midway of cutting into her cheese cake, a scheming expression forming on her face. “I can take over some of your routine work for a bit, and I know R would also be delighted to help in any way. You just focus on what you work on and leave the rest to us.”

Kit hadn’t really thought that far yet, but Beatrice was looking at her excitedly, with her usual ready to dive into any new plan energy, and Kit suddenly found herself influenced by that passion of Beatrice’s one would easily get affected by, and combined with her leftover anger from earlier, it was turning into a force of motivation she hadn’t expected.

“In fact,” she said, speculative. “I do have something in mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi on tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com)


End file.
